


Angels, Demons, and Humanity

by kjack89



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Good Omens Fusion, Angel!Combeferre, Canonical Character Death, Good Omens AU, M/M, One-Sided Relationship, demon!Grantaire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 13:50:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1268734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire is a demon who hasn't been in Paris since the Reign of Terror, but his angel friend - well, acquaintance, really, demons couldn't really be friends with angels, strictly speaking, 5800 hundreds years of working together be damned - Combeferre calls him back to town with a request.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angels, Demons, and Humanity

**Author's Note:**

> Technically could be considered a Good Omens crossover, since nothing that happens here directly contradicts the timeline in Good Omens, but since it involves none of the characters - Grantaire and Combeferre are not Crowley and Aziraphale, they're a different demon and angel - I'm leaving it as an AU.
> 
> That being said, literally the only thing you need to know about this is that Grantaire is a demon and Combeferre is an angel.
> 
> Usual disclaimer: I own nothing but my typos. And what good are typos? They don't keep me warm at night, they don't feed me...sigh.

Grantaire didn’t believe in much, which wasn’t entirely surprising. 5800 years on Earth — give or take a few years — was enough to shake the foundations of even the most stalwart of demons, which Grantaire was decidedly not, and had decidedly never been. Of course, the more acceptable term wasn’t ‘demon’, it was ‘Fallen Angel’, but Grantaire also didn’t much believe in acceptable terms. In fact, for the most part, Grantaire hadn’t even believed in the Fall, had mostly just been in the wrong place as the wrong time, and had made the mistake of believing not much could be worse than Heaven.

He’d been wrong, and endeavored not to believe in anything since.

What he  _did_  believe in, however, was the fact that as a demon, he should indulge in the vices of man. After all, how could he tempt a man to sin without knowing sin’s seductive powers?

Which was all a very long introduction to Grantaire sitting outside a café in Paris, the bottle of wine in front of him nestled cozily among several other bottles, all of which Grantaire had drunk over the past few hours. He’d been studiously avoiding Paris and France in general since the Reign of Terror, had even popped over to America for a bit just to get away from it all. But then he’d gotten a message from Combeferre, and, well, here he was.

He and Combeferre had been, if not friends, then at the very least acquaintances almost since the very Beginning. Neither of them could agree on who had been placed on Earth first, but they both agreed that if they could have changed their placement, they probably would have (Grantaire wasn’t keen on Hell, but somedays, it seemed a much better alternative). Fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be, there was ineffability to consider.

There was  _always_  ineffability to consider.

But they were perhaps doing their best to skirt ineffability through their little arrangement. It was a simple enough affair — they stayed out of each other’s way and gave each other mostly free-reign. Grantaire could tempt whomever he wanted so long as Combeferre could lead anyone to salvation. They were not the first angel and demon to have come to this arrangement, but Combeferre admitted to sometimes feeling a twinge of guilt; Grantaire had no such qualms, but then again, he  _was_  a demon.

He was supposed to be meeting Combeferre in the Jardin du Luxembourg, and thus was hoping to get as steadily drunk as he possibly could before this meeting. He didn’t know what Combeferre wanted exactly, but figured it couldn’t be good.

And when he finally found Combeferre, he was very glad he had taken his time with that last bottle because Combeferre…Combeferre was  _excited_.

If there was one thing Grantaire hated most in the world, it was excitement. Excitement meant belief, and more importantly, happiness in beliefs. And that was Grantaire’s antithesis, needless to say. “You’re chipper,” he said to Combeferre, figuring that after decades of not speaking, it was as good a greeting as any.  

Combeferre smiled wryly at him. “I’d say it’s nice to see you, Grantaire, but…”

“To be fair, you’re the one that invited me here,” Grantaire pointed out, leaning against a tree. “Which means you  _must_  have had a reason. Or at least, you better have. I was enjoying America.”

Combeferre raised an eyebrow. “And here I thought you hated America.”

Grantaire smiled slightly. “Oh, I do. But there’s just so much to  _do_  there. It’s a new breed of demonic works over there. You should come after you’re done with whatever you have going for you here. Speaking of…”

He trailed off and Combeferre perked up. “Well, I know you claimed that the last revolution was also going to be  _your_  last revolution, but there’s something happening here that I thought even you would want to see.”

“I somehow doubt that,” Grantaire said dryly. “That being said, I’m already here, so I suppose you can explain what exactly is so exciting.”

The situation, as Combeferre explained it, was this: revolutionary fervor was picking up throughout the city, particularly among student groups and spurred on by extreme conditions and the cholera that had swept through the city. In particular, one group of students, Les Amis de l’ABC, and their leader, Enjolras, were determined to change things. Combeferre, it seemed, had fallen in with this group.

Grantaire listened with a skeptical look on his face. “So they’re doing God’s work, are they?” he asked, a little waspishly.

Combeferre’s excitement faltered slightly. “Well,  _I_ think they are,” he said, a little hesitantly.

Now Grantaire smirked at him. “Let me guess, the Authority disagrees?”

Combeferre scowled at him. “If you must know, they think it is a minor affair and not worth the attentions of Heaven.”

“Which means that you brought me here to try to prove them wrong, since if it was a minor affair, why would an agent of Hell be involved,” Grantaire surmised shrewdly, still smirking. Combeferre’s lips pursed, but he didn’t deny it. Sighing, Grantaire shrugged. “What the hell. Take me to one of these meetings you’ve been talking about.”

“You really want to get involved in this?” Combeferre asked, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

Grantaire shrugged again. “I still owe you from the thing in the place with those guys.” It spoke volumes about their friendship that both of them understood exactly what he was talking about. “And besides, it sounds like there will be wine.”

Combeferre grinned. “There will be. I guarantee that.”

There was, in fact, wine. There were also well-intentioned humans, which normally made Grantaire’s skin crawl, except for the fact that one of the humans was the most beautiful human Grantaire had ever laid his eyes on.

Strictly speaking, angels and demons both were sexless unless they particularly wanted to make an effort; for this human, Grantaire  _wanted_  to make an effort. He wouldn’t call it love, or even lust — demons don’t experience emotions the same way that humans did, after all — but it was pretty damned close.

And for the sake of this human, who turned out to be the Enjolras that Combeferre had hardly been able to shut up about, and for Combeferre, who Grantaire really did owe because of, well, pretty much the entire fourteenth century, Grantaire actually sat through the entire meeting without making much of a fuss, though he couldn’t help but snort at some of the more ridiculous things Enjolras said, which drew looks of ire from the blond-haired man, and  _mercif— blesse—_ diabolic Satan below, Enjolras looked like something straight out of a Renaissance portrait (and Grantaire would know; some of the more popular Renaissance works had been influenced by him — he had been going through an artistic phase, though most of his suggestions for depictions of Jesus and the disciples were seen as “too unrealistic”, despite the fact that he had, you know, actually  _met_  the man in question. Humans.).

After the meeting, he cornered Combeferre. “We need to talk,” he said. “Preferably, ah, away from here?”

“You want to do this, don’t you?” Combeferre asked, a little gleeful.

Grantaire rolled his eyes, though of course he did. “I just think that in concurrence with our arrangement, it would make sense that as you fill Enjolras’s head with heavenly things, so too must my role be to fill it with doubt — or to try, anyway. Don’t you think?”

Combeferre smiled, a little smugly. “You certainly can try. I don’t see you getting particularly far.”

“Well,” Grantaire said easily, with the confidence borne from 5800 years of tempting humanity, “we’ll just have to wait and see.”

* * *

 

It went about as well as Combeferre expected. Enjolras was thoroughly incapable of being tempted, despite Grantaire’s best efforts. The most he could hope for was mild irritation from him, which over enough years could build up into something, but they hardly had the time for that. Instead, Grantaire decided the best that he could do was to frustrate Enjolras, to try to show him that some humans could not be reached by his message. And frustrate Enjolras it did, and Grantaire felt a small curl of satisfaction whenever Enjolras thought particularly dark thoughts.

Of course, the assumption was that what Grantaire was trying to achieve was tempting Enjolras, and that was what he reported on to the Dark Powers. But in reality, he was perfectly content spending as much time as he could around the blond-haired man.

5800 hundred years around humans and he had never known that it could feel like this.

But just as Enjolras was a conflicting mess of emotions and convictions, so too was the mood of the city. As tensions arose, as they marched steadily toward the inevitable clash, neither Grantaire nor Combeferre could say with any certainty what would happen or, perhaps most importantly, who would win.

And of course, as these things tended to happen, no amount of angelic or demonic influence could have had as much impact as the minds of man, and by the time they realized what was going to happen, they were powerless to stop it, even if they had wanted to. And Grantaire had to admit that he wasn’t sure he wanted it to.

He discussed it with Combeferre, one night in May. “I wonder what my side will get out of whatever is to come,” he said, his voice low. Though he had assimilated with little effort into the group, he tended to hang out with Joly and Bossuet more than the rest, not because they were more demonic, but simply because they were less tempting for Grantaire to, well, tempt (they were kind and friendly but not big movers and shakers in the revolutionary group, so he didn’t feel the need to try and corrupt them — well, not  _too_ much anyway, and they did most of the corrupting themselves), so they were trying to keep this little rendezvous as clandestine as possible.

Combeferre frowned. “What do you mean?” he asked. “I know clearly what my side gets out of things. “The revolutionaries will triumph and good will win out. It will be a win for us, though perhaps with some regrettable carnage.”

“But that’s just what I mean,” Grantaire told him. “I have a feeling, no matter the outcome, my side will count it as a win as well.”

“How so?”

Grantaire leaned forward, his brow furrowed. “A man rebelling against the God-given king and leading his friends to their deaths? No matter the outcome, no matter if he goes to Heaven, it will be enough to inspire evil thoughts on both sides of things. And that’s exactly what worries me. Are we doing the right thing in letting this happen?”

Shrugging, Combeferre crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I certainly can’t imagine it’d be right to sit back and do nothing. The corruption, the inequality, the pestilence…” Grantaire made a face but nodded reluctantly, and Combeferre’s expression softened. “You could leave, by the way. You’ve done your part — what’s in motion is in motion, and my side have approved my involvement. You don’t need to be a part of whatever is to come.”

Grantaire just smiled weakly, his eyes dark. “I would have thought you’d know that it is far too late for me to leave now.”

“Because of Enjolras.” Combeferre did not state it as a question so Grantaire did not acknowledge it as a question, though the look on his face was answer enough regardless. “I know what I see in him — the good, the angellic, even, his unwavering faith, all the things that place him firmly on the side of Heaven — but there is almost nothing demonic to him. Unless if I’m missing something.”

Grantaire’s smile was almost wistful as he shook his head. “No, you’re not missing anything. Even the ‘bad’ parts of Enjolras are not particularly demonic. But they do keep him from being too good, as you well know.” He shook his head and said simply, “He is human. Beautifully and perfectly and tragically human.”

“If he is human, you must see something in him that you could twist towards evil,” Combeferre pointed out evenly. “Would you lead him into temptation if you could? If it would save him?”

Grantaire shook his head, contemplative. “I would follow him wherever he might lead,” he said quietly, “but I would never presume to lead him anywhere, least of all into temptation. The only thing that I can do — the only thing that I will do, before the end — is to fail him and make him question his faith in the whole of humanity.” His smile twisted. “It is a role that I was born to play.”

Neither mentioned that demons were, of course, not born. Instead, Combeferre asked, “Would you follow him to Heaven, if you could?”

For a moment, Grantaire smiled slightly at the thought, then his expression turned stormy. “There are some things that cannot be forgiven.”

Combeferre did not know if Grantaire referred to Enjolras or to God, and thought it best not to ask. “So you will not leave.”

Grantaire raised an eyebrow at him. “I intend to see this through in order to provide an accurate report for my side. As, I assume, do you.” He leaned forward. “Don’t get so caught up in things that you forget that you cannot die with your friends.”

“They’re your friends too,” Combeferre returned flatly. “And inconvenient discorporation is a small price to pay if I can help them turn the tide. Indirectly, of course.”

“Of course,” Grantaire said, smirking slightly. He had seen Combeferre teaching himself to shoot a pistol. Both Heaven and Hell disapproved of direct action by angels or demons; their role was to inspire men to act in one way or the other. But what Heaven and Hell didn’t know…

He raised his wine bottle and took a sip. “Then I suppose there’s nothing left for us to do but to wait.”

* * *

 

They did not have to wait for long. The death of General Lamarque — Grantaire had thought once of trying to get him over to Hell’s side but abandoned that quickly — tipped the scales and Les Amis as a whole took to the barricades. Even Grantaire, though he had been ignored by Enjolras when it came to the General’s funeral. “I won’t go to his funeral,” Grantaire had muttered, though that had less to do with any real resentment and more to do with what would probably be a pressing need to flee from Paris in the event of Enjolras's inevitable death.

Unlike Combeferre, Grantaire would not take a central role in the fighting, not because he didn’t believe in direct involvement but because he didn’t know if he could stand it. He may have been a demon, but he was still of angelic stock, and the thought of watching the only humans he had become close with in centuries perish was not one he desired.

Instead, he got outrageously drunk and asked Enjolras to let him sleep in the wine shop. Enjolras’s disdain was apparent, and Grantaire hoped fleetingly that Enjolras would keep that flame burning inside him, as it might be the only thing to get him through.

Of course, being a demon, alcohol did not affect him the way that it did humans, and he woke in the middle of the night when Combeferre sat down across from him. “Will you join us on the barricade?”

“I somehow doubt that the forces of Hell would much approve of that.”

Combeferre’s expression hardened. “So what are you going to do?” he asked abruptly. “Take sides with the National Guard? Watch as we are all mowed down?”

Grantaire smiled sadly. “After all this time you still make the mistake of believing that if an action is not aligned with Heaven it must be aligned with Hell.” He grabbed the bottle of wine from in front of him, glad that it still had some wine left in it. “I have nothing to do with their actions; in truth, the National Guard believes they are acting on the side of God, so much so that even I could not persuade them otherwise.”

Frowning deeply, Combeferre protested, “But they’re not! How can they possibly think that what they are about to do is God’s work?”

Shrugging, Grantaire raised his wine bottle in a mocking toast. “The way humans throughout history have claimed to be on the side of God when committing atrocities. Just the same as when they claim to be possessed by the devil. A demon’s work is practically done for him by the ideas that humans possess all on their own.”

“I refuse to believe humanity as a whole is so corrupt,” Combeferre said sternly. “You’ve met enough humans who have proven that wrong.”

Grantaire leaned forward, his expression serious. “In my experience, humanity is rarely all good or rarely all bad, as you well know. But there are some who, though thoroughly human, lean towards evil or lean towards good without any help from Heaven or Hell. And lately, it seems that those who lean towards evil far outnumber those who lean towards good.”

“But what about Enjolras?” Combeferre asked, his voice suddenly quiet.

Shaking his head, Grantaire’s eyes hardened. “What  _about_  Enjolras?” he snapped. “He is human, he is fallible, he is mortal.”

Combeferre shook his head as well. “You don’t want to see him win?”

“I don’t want to see him die.”

Grantaire’s words were sharp and stark, and Combeferre flinched. “You don’t know—” he started, but Grantaire just shook his head and settled back in his chair, his eyes hooded.

“You should return to the barricade,” he said softly. “Before you’re missed.”

Combeferre stood, a little hesitantly. “I shall see you on the other side,” he said, just a slight questioning lilt in his tone. When Grantaire did not acknowledge him, Combeferre turned and walked slowly out of the wine shop.

* * *

 

Of course, Grantaire could not stay out of things, even if he had wanted to, and truthfully, he had not wanted to. He wished more than anything that he could have stopped what happened, but when it became clear that he could not, the only thing he wanted was to stop Enjolras from dying. That, too, proved futile.

But what woke him from his stupor — less from drink and more from dark thoughts, the kind that would cause even the hardiest demon to reconsider his life decisions — was the flickering of doubt on his periphery, doubt where once the flame of belief had shone brighter than anything.

Enjolras was afraid. Enjolras was doubting.

If Grantaire were a better demon, if Grantaire truly cared about making sure things went the way that Hell wanted them to, he would have stayed exactly where he was, letting Enjolras doubt in his last moments in the hope that it would be enough to turn his soul towards Hell. But perhaps humanity had rubbed off on Grantaire — perhaps after 5800 years that was to be expected.

Or perhaps he really did feel for Enjolras that which no demon should ever be able to feel.

Either way, he stood, making his way across to where Enjolras stood, uttering the only words he could think to make Enjolras believe again. “Long life the Republic! I am one of them!”

And when Enjolras took his hand, just before the guns fired, he burned so brightly with belief that Grantaire thought he might burn alongside him.

* * *

 

He didn’t, of course. Discorporation was a temporary inconvenience for a demon — the worst part was holding himself together until the National Guardsmen left; after that, the worst part was letting Enjolras go.

A few days later, in an alley far from the Corinthe, far from the Musain, Grantaire met up with Combeferre, both quiet, both wan, both contemplating the ineffability of the deaths of so many. Their forms kept flickering, an unfortunate side effect of discorporation, and for a moment it seemed from their shadows that both men had wings. “Is it done?” Combeferre asked in lieu of greeting.

Grantaire shrugged. “I have submitted my report to Hell,” he muttered. “The dark powers seem satisfied. Not as good as the Reign of Terror, but there you are.”

Combeferre hesitated. “I know what you did,” he blurted, finally. “Did you include that in your report?”

Grantaire raised an eyebrow, for just a moment looking like his old self. “No more than I assume you included it in your report to Heaven.” Then his expression fell again. “It isn’t for them to know. It didn’t change anything, in the end.”

“How can you say that?” Combeferre demanded. “You loved him. Even if you are a demon, you loved him. And that has to count for something.”

“What would it count for?” Grantaire challenged, eyes flashing dangerously. “He is dead. They all are. My side considers it a win; so does yours. Is this really what happens? Both sides claim victory and nothing ever changes? Is that what ineffability means? If so, I don’t know if I want any part of it.”

Combeferre just shook his head slowly, just as unable to make sense of it as Grantaire was, his own belief shaken. “You loved him,” he repeated.

Grantaire said flatly, “Demons don’t know how to love.” He turned to walk away, then paused. “I suppose I will see you when I see you. I don’t know…I don’t know when I’ll be back in Paris. Or if.”

“I think you will,” Combeferre said quietly. “When the revolution really does happen. You’ll want to see it through.”

Grantaire just shrugged. “We’ll see.” He hesitated, then reached out to clap Combeferre on the shoulder. “You’re a right bastard, you know?”

“I know,” Combeferre muttered, watching as Grantaire slowly walked away, his wings just visible, more to the angel than to any humans, dragging in the mud as he walked. “And you have more good in you than you will ever know.”


End file.
